Delicate Pursuits

As part of an extension of her freedoms and independence, Citronella has been released from the protective grasp of Blanche’s supervision and allowed to wander the burrogatory streets - so long as she returns before nightfall. It’s a job easier said than done. While Blanche has done his best to train them on traffic rules, crosswalks, and general pedestrian etiquette, nothing can truly prepare someone to navigate the busy city streets by themselves. They hold their skirts close to their body with one hand, pull their protective sun bonnet down with the other, and scurry along the sidewalk beside the street, each shuffle of their heels echoing down the alleys with a rapid tk-tk-tk.

One thing is VERY clear to her. Regardless of what memories she may have lost… there is not a single chance she would have lived here. Why anyone would willingly subject themselves to this unending barrage of noise and muck was beyond her.

A car veers around the next corner, clipping into a puddle of water and who-knows-what filth. It overflows the sidewalk and sprays through the air. She gasps, swerves through the procession of dolls and buns making their way downtown, and presses herself to the wall furthest from the street. With muffled grumbles she lifts the crinoline under her skirt, bends her knee at the circular joint, and inspects the bottom of her heels for damage. They’re certainly scuffed from scuttling around the sidewalk all day… but at the very least, the brown water didn’t stain the cream fabric that covers them. They’ll make Blanche buff the marks out when they get home. As Citronella straightens up, she lets out a soft huff, adjusting her bonnet with an indignant little snap at the ribbon. When she moves next she tucks her hands under both sides of her skirts, folds them inward toward herself, and shuffles with her head tucked down to protect her garments. 

She stops when the toes of her shoes come to a large, glass structure jutting out into the walkway. Her first reaction is to purse her lips, jump back from the interruption in her way, and gather the snap of an insult or two on the tip of her tongue. The beautiful, gilded structure of the elevator in front of her brings those protests to a halt that screeches louder than the breaks of the vehicles behind her.

The elevator is tucked perfectly between two imposing, brick buildings streaked dark from the soot and oil of passing cars in the city. The metal is new and shining and strikingly out of place among the pulse of the city of sin. It’s framed by a golden archway, faintly glimmering in the crystal-light, that displays a clear name above the elevator doors: The Heavenly Embassy.

One hand pressed to the top of her bonnet, Citronella tilts her head back to follow the shaft of the elevator its entire passage up, up, and up… right to a cloud floating in the sky, pristine white compared to the darkness of the city. Her eyes sparkle. There’s some part of her worried about the unknown, but something more in her that knows whatever is housed on the cloud above must be more suited to her delicate constitution than the rush and filth of the metropolis here. 

She reaches out one gloved hand, taps the tip of her finger on the button on the elevator, and steps through the open glass doors. They close behind her with a calming, chime-like sound. 

The ascent is smoother than she anticipated. Being trapped in a glass box overlooking a city which slowly gets smaller and smaller should be terrifying. Certainly, feeling her feet leave the ground in this way for the first time almost makes her jump, and her hands clutch the bars around the inside of the elevator for support. However, the elevator makes a gentle hum as it’s mechanisms pull it along the shaft, and the noise of the city fades away to favor the quiet din of the ‘Heavenly Embassy’ and Citronella feels the hammering of her own heart settle into something more like fluttering apprehension and thrill.

When the doors open again, she’s somewhere entirely unknown. Aside from the fluff of the cloud the scenery before her is settled on, it’s almost… exactly as below. There is an entire city of it’s own in development on this upper level of the city. Buildings are settled into the clouds, roads are paved through them, and houses and apartments dot the far edges of the space. She notes now that she does think she’s seen the inhabitants of this space before - buns with short tails, cloud-like in their own way, and ears whose edges are scalloped instead of curved. The halos, of course, stand out more than anything. The same hand that allowed her access to the elevator clasps the jagged edge of her broken horn. A halo of light, she imagines, would hardly snap so easily from a small accident… 

A cherubun bumps her from behind on their way into the heavenly city, Citronella gasps, stumbles to the side, and watches the figure hurry off and into one of the largest buildings in view: a greenhouse. The ceiling is tall, domed all the way up like it wants to kiss the ceiling of the cave, if not break through even higher to what lies beyond. The shine of the crystals reflects on the glass in a way that is almost… blinding. The newly reforming parts of her attitude want to be mildly annoyed that the man that ran into her couldn’t spare the seconds to apologize for the collision, but the curiosity pulling her leash guides her right up to the doors he went through.

She pulls them open, struggling with the weight of the impressive doors, just enough to squeeze herself through the crack to peer into the massive greenhouse. The scent reaches her first: blooming petals, fresh greenery, and wet soil. It reminds her of afternoons spent on Moochi’s farm in the late spring, when the fresh plants were just blooming and the rains were frequent and heavy. The comforting aroma pulls even harder on that invisible leash. 

The man from before stands inside, tying an apron around his clothes - equally golden to the entire atmosphere of the embassy. At his feet rests an array of bags: seeds, fertilizer, soil… Some of those must have been what he was carrying inside from the city below. Being situated on a cloud like this, Citronella imagines he must have to source the soil for the plants in this greenhouse from farms in the burrowgatory. She could point him Moochi’s wa-

“Do you intend to stand there gawking, or are you here to do more than get in my way?” the man speaks up as he pulls a set of hefty rubber gloves over his hands. 

Citronella’s jaw drops first. She straightens her posture, heels blow her clicking as one of her cheeks puff out with air. “I beg your finest pardon?” she asks. “In a greenhouse of this size, I manage to be in your way just from admiring the greenery?” 

Primrose lifts a now-protected hand and points in the vague direction of not in the greenhouse, back the way they both came. “You did a fine job of managing to occupy the entire path at the entrance to the Embassy. I’d say you make a fine replacement for a traffic cone, only a traffic cone is meant to be easy to avoid.” 

Even in the first days after the loss of her memory, Citronella has never been one skilled at apologizing herself. She certainly makes no intentions to begin now. “If there is a price to be paid for stopping to admire the scenery, feel free to name it, sir. Some folk are content to stop and appreciate something beautiful before them! You seem more delighted to knock it over and bury your nose in the dirt.” She gestures to the un-planted beds before him.

There are few things that Primrose doesn’t have: time, patience, and the wherewithal to deal with the annoying filth that manages to drag itself up from the belly of debauchery below. If the cherubuns didn’t need it themselves, Primrose would sooner knock the entire elevator down than allow passage of another succubun with their horns stuck in the wrong places. 

“You can stay and assist in the garden, or I will have you escorted away by the security,” he lies. “Your choice.”

Citronella is still far too gullible to catch his lie. “Security?” she gasps, the frailness in her voice fluttering about the edges. “You would have me thrown out just for wanting to admire? Is the street entrance just for looks then as well? And what happens if the security does throw me ou-”

“Five…” Primrose begins to count, tucking his apron over his slacks so he can bend down to his knees in the dirt. “Four…”

“I don’t do farming,” she continues, voice growing higher pitched and more anxious. “Do you have any idea how long it takes the mud to come out from my joints? Blanche has to scrub my ankles for hours any time I want to walk through the grass… Not to mention my heels and skirts. These things aren’t made for-”

“Three. Two.”

“Oh alright!” Citronella stops the countdown just as Primrose was beginning to get worried about what exactly he was going to do when he reached zero. “I suppose learning a bit of a lesson in tending wouldn’t hurt in my re-education regardless…” Moochi is, as a general rule, far too spoil-inclined than to have made Citronella do any work during her visit. It seems the role falls to this new stranger. Said stranger lifts his hand from his trowel to point behind him at a row of immaculately cleaned and organized hooks.

“Aprons, gloves, tools. If you don’t want to get your clothes dirty, I suggest you take the time to make sure you protect them properly.”

Citronella pouts slightly at the wall of items. Blanche dresses her at home… and it isn’t exactly easy to wiggle out of her frills and ribbons and laced up things now. She’ll have to make due with what she can - and her personal tender won’t mind too much that he needs to stay up soaking the yellow and white fabrics to make sure the dirt stains don’t set. At the very least… She braces herself against the wall of the greenhouse, reaches behind, and lifts her leg from under her skirts to slip her heels off and leave them on the clean ground. A dirty dress is annoying but fixable… heels embedded in the soil is another. 

When the apron is on and covering their skirts as best as they can manage, their gloves have been replaced with their own rubber pair, and their bonnet and accessories have been left by the hooks, Citronella returns to Primrose’s side. Her mouth crinkles up in distaste as she kneels beside him, feeling the wet earth dampen the apron immediately - and consecutively, her outer layer of skirts. Primrose deposits a trowel into her hands before she has time to question the next steps of the process.

“Go down the line and make holes no bigger than your thumb. I’ll fill them with a seed, and then you close them over. Can you manage that without making a mistake?” he asks, nose turned upward.

Citronella narrows her eyes to him. “Would it not be quicker to allow me to handle all parts of that process? Shall we split the seeds and do two rows instead of one to ease your burdens?”

The sky-ward nose crinkles in more disgust than Citronella could make with her whole face. “Allow you to handle the ambrosia seeds? Ha! Oh, you must moonlight as a comedian in the burrowgatory, don’t you?” His voice drops, drastically, as he clutches the bag tighter to his chest. “These seeds are harvested individually from the remaining flowers we have from the heavenly meadow. I would hardly ever let any succubun run the risk of tampering with the cultivation of our most important resource. Dig the holes.”

Citronella stares at him for a long moment, lips taut and fingers even tighter around the handle of her shovel. She searches her mind for the words of retort she wants so desperately… and comes up empty headed. With nothing more than a huff of protest, she resigns herself to scoot on her knees, one by one, down the empty flower bed to make tiny little holes, wait obediently for the glimmering seed to be dropped in them, and cover them over. They continue like this with little conversation aside from mutters and strict instructions until one side of the empty bed is entirely filled with newly planted seed.

Distantly, a bell chimes. Citronella looks up from the dirt that has absorbed her for the last… who knows how long. The shine of the crystals through the glass is dimmer, casting even this floating cloud into the sherbet hue of an approaching evening. She drops the trowel, stands up, and spins toward the door. Her feet in the dirt to a splendid job of ruining the last several planted seed bulbs. Primrose clutches his head, groaning with the sound of enraged frustration that competes with Citronella’s panicked mumbles.

“I’m going to be late for my curfew!” they gasp. They run from the bed, ruining the dirt just enough more to make Primrose now DRAG his hands down his face and to his neck while he fantasizes about strangling hers. In what world does a SUCCUBUN have a CURFEW.

“You will stay right here!” Primrose shouts, stepping away from the flowerbed to face her. Citronella is already scrambling for the hooks, tossing her dirty apron on the ground and her gloves atop, even though the proper place for storing them is just beside her. Primrose’s desire for violence ticks ever so slightly higher. “Until this bed is made tidy and you dig up the seeds you’ve ruined, you are not permitted to leave this-”

“Call the guards if you must!” Citronella pants, tying her bonnet on her head in a sloppy, lopsided manner. “They won’t have time to catch me and I won’t have time to catch my way home! I… I’ll find time to repay you!” they plead, scooping their shoes up with one hand and not bothering to put them back on their dirty feet at they run toward the door. “Next time I come back!”

“N… NEXT TIME?” Primrose all but screeches, if only his dignity would allow him to make such unrefined levels of volume - frazzled at the end of a succubun’s negligence of all things. “If this is the kind of problems you intend to cause the Embassy, there will be no next time. The moment you step through those doors you will be pushed right back into them. You will be grounded - permanently!!”

Citronella pushes on the heavy glass greenhouse door once again, struggling to open it just as before. While he certainly has no command over her, Blanche does still insist she be home before nightfall - and she agrees. The streets of the burrow after dark are an entirely different beast, especially this deep in the city. The brothels, clubs, casinos, restaurants, and smoke houses all open - and those that visit them, the kind of bun that Citronella is ill prepared to interact with, will be dotting every single edge of the street corners. They’ll already be out… and that alone is enough to worry her into carelessness.

One of her heels slips from her grasp as she squeezes herself through the door again. It falls just perfectly between the gaps, blocking the door from completely closing. She nearly trips over her skirts as she turns around, desperately grasping for it. On the other side of the door, however, is a very angry cherubun marching directly for her AND her shoe. They decide, in perhaps the quickest way they have ever decided anything, that Blanche will simply have to buy her a new one.

They abandon it with Primrose and the embassy, fleeing streaked in dirt, holding onto a lopsided bonnet, barefoot, and with only one heel in hand back to where Blanche will have their chauffeur waiting to take them home.